Whether you are in business for yourself or working in a corporate role, increasing your visibility will help you enhance and strengthen your personal brand.
In a nutshell, your personal brand is what people say about you when you leave the room. So, how do you strengthen your personal brand and increase your visibility?
In this article, we provide five strategies to help you do precisely that.
Increase Your Energy Level
When you show up in a physical or virtual room or meeting, e.g., your team meeting, a presentation, a panel, or whatever the case may be, be aware of and raise your energy level.
When you increase your energy level, you increase your visibility.
Energy is contagious, and everything is about energy. If you show up and your shoulders are slumped, your voice is low, and you're a little lethargic as you're interacting or presenting your facts, people will fall asleep, listening and watching you.
The opposite of that is that you show up vibrant and alert. While sitting or standing, your shoulders are back. You are in an energetic state, and your voice and energy projects. You exude passion, purpose, and intention.
When you show up with energy, it increases your visibility. People notice you; people listen to you.
Along with that, part of that energy is your voice. Your voice is like a piano, and many of us use our voice as if it were a flat instrument. We don't change ranges, go up and down. We pretty much stay in the same monotone, pitch, and cadence through our speech.
If you watch Ted Talks or listen to podcasts and you're listening to someone who changes their cadence, their pitch, when they're speaking, you listen.
As a motivational speaker, I love to practice what I'm going to present. I can then bring my best to that presentation. I do that because practice is essential. I record myself and watch the recording. Then, I jot down how I can improve next time, tweak, and I redo it.
So, use your voice in an engaging way and remember that you have a full range. You don't have to stay low, and you don't have to be up the whole time--because that would be really annoying to many people. It will be annoying to yourself.
Finding out what's the right rhythm for you is critical because you also need to be authentic.
You can't pretend to be upbeat when you are not. But when you present, ramping up your energy a couple of notches will help you increase your visibility, deliver a more engaging message, and strengthen your personal brand in the process.
Share on Social Media
I know the minute that we say social media, some may start thinking:
I don't have time for that... I'm so busy...I have a full-time job...I have a family...I have a household to run...I have projects that I'm running...I don't have time for social media.
If you are looking to let the world and the marketplace know how valuable you are, taking the time to be more present and more intentional about how you interact with your social media will pay dividends.
So, here's one simple way to do it.
You don't have to shoot daily videos as I do. All you would need to do is find one article you find interesting within your LinkedIn feed or any place else where you get your digital media. Then, take that article link and paste it on LinkedIn. Briefly mention what you enjoyed about it from your perspective and share it with your network. It could be as simple as that.
When you're not using your time wisely, you may spend hours in front of Netflix (we all do it!) or swiping through Facebook or Instagram posts. If you don't take some of that time to benefit yourself in terms of increasing your value, the value that you add to your network, to the people in your world, in your sphere of influence, you're wasting an opportunity.
I'm not advocating that you stop doing things that relax you because that's legitimate. I'm not indicating that you only focus on posting on social media. I am simply inviting you to take five minutes, find an article, read it, and then share it with your network.
This is one more strategy to increase your visibility, strengthen your personal brand, and ultimately be known for the things you do well and the thought leadership you bring.
Increase Your Circle of Influence
Everybody who has attended my talks participated in the Fearless Leaders Challenge or in private coaching with me knows that I focus on identifying circles of influence and people in your sphere of influence that impact your work and your well-being. I focus on developing relationships with people in these circles.
The little secret that I share with my audiences is that I use a calendar link to connect with them expediently and effortlessly.
Even if you don't have a business, and you would like to expand your circle of influence, I recommend getting one of the free calendar apps. For example, Calendly is one of them. I use youcanbook.me, which is free for most of the basic features. When you create this calendar, you can create versions of your calendar, such as a cyber-coffee calendar, to be a 15-minute meeting.
Whenever I want to connect with someone, the first thing I do is get curious. What is it about them that is interesting? What is the reason why I want to connect with them? I also think about what it is that I want to walk away with.
And remember that it is a combination of what you desire and how you can support them. What's interesting to them? How can you support them, potentially? Why would they want to connect with you? Then, send them a quick message (e.g., via LinkedIn) and share what it is that interests you about them and ask them if they would be open to connecting over a 10- to 15-minute cyber coffee.
This approach is very effective from my personal experience and that of my clients and audiences who have shared with me. People are very prone to say "yes" to a 10- or 15-minutes cyber-coffee.
This approach is what I would also recommend to you. To increase your visibility, expand your centers of influence. Include people in your environment who are above you in the org chart, your manager(s), and people reporting to you. Make sure that you are building relationships across the board.
And in that way, you will increase your visibility and strengthen your personal brand. How? When opportunities come up, those people in your centers of influence will have you top-of-mind because they understand who you are, what you do--your marketable skills, and your characteristics. As a collaborator, you are approaching them with the spirit of contribution, not only to take, take, take. That's key.
Be Authentically You
At the beginning of October, I was immersed in a three-day training with some of my mentors, Dean Graziosi, Tony Robbins, and their guests. And in that training, they talked about increasing your visibility from the perspective of strengthening your brand and sharing yourself as if you were in a magazine.
Imagine that your brand is represented through a magazine; what would be the top five topics that interest you most?
If you know me and follow me on LinkedIn or other social media platforms, or if you've watched me during a motivational talk or coached with me privately, you know that I'm into coaching, self-development and that I love to learn. You'll also notice that I'm into nutrition, fitness and that I'm a spiritual person. I'm evolving into my highest Self every single day, and that's my personal journey.
When you share yourself with your audience and within your environment as if you were the main topic of a magazine, people will get to know the real you.
If you have a business, when people get to know the real you, they get to know, like, and trust you and conduct business with you.
If you're in the corporate world, you feel better when you show people truly who you are, not bragging, not throwing it in somebody's face, but simply owning who you are. And the people around you sense that you are at ease, which develops trust--something we all need from each other.
When we feel good inside, when we show up to whatever environments we are in authentically, it will increase your visibility because people will see you as the person you are. You don't have to pretend to be somebody else. We can smell those people a thousand miles away.
Own the things that interest you, and you will notice that people who like similar things will gravitate toward you.
We tend to think that we are different from everybody else. And the minute you begin to share yourself authentically and speak about meaningful things to you, you will notice that other people who have similar interests gravitate toward you.
Now, of course, we need to be careful not to be divisive, meaning that we may have very strong opinions about certain topics, and people don't really want to hear about it. So, we have to also be cognizant of what we're discussing and where we're discussing them.
If you're with your dearest friends, you can talk about anything. If you're with your coworkers, you want to make sure that you bring up topics that won't be divisive within your work culture.
Be authentically who you are, let people know what you are about, and pick those five topics. Those will be the topics that define your personal brand, and then go out and live that brand.
Share Your Voice
The last strategy we'll explore in this series is sharing your voice. Many of us, especially women, tend to stay quiet when in meetings, whether virtual or live.
In many of my talks, during the Q&A portion, this topic comes up, especially when I'm presenting to ERGs (the employee resource groups) with women.
How do we express what's in our minds without letting the fear take over or the doubt that maybe what we have to share is not valuable enough? Sometimes, before we open our mouth to say something, somebody else jumps in and says the same idea we were thinking about.
Saying this with love and compassion, what will it take for us to own our voice?
It requires that you get crystal clear on what your unique value proposition is. When you understand that you have good ideas and have a unique perspective from which you solve problems, you own that and share it unapologetically.
What happens when we do that is that we add the most value to our environment. And that's really what it's all about--to authentically share yourself and share what you know with the people around you.
Try to add value, create solutions, work together, collaborate, strategize, and develop ways to move forward to serve the company. That will serve your team, and it will serve you.
October marks the third anniversary of publishing my first #1 bestselling book, Fearless Women at Work: Five Powerful Strategies to Thrive in Your Career and Life! In this book, I share 30 years of professional and personal insights, along with strategies to support you in your career as a leader and to cultivate well-being in your life.
I realize that some of these strategies may be familiar or may seem insignificant. Speaking from experience, applying these strategies of increasing your energy, leveraging social media, connecting with your network and your centers of influence, being authentic, and speaking your voice work. Applying them will most likely increase your impact in the workplace environment and social circles.
You're also going to have a more fulfilling career and life because you're truly showing up in your highest self. What's most important, in my opinion, is how you feel.
When you show up recognizing your own value and worth, using your gifts in the workplace, knowing the mission of your team and your organization, and how your work fits into that mission, research shows that you are more likely to find meaning in your work and perform at your best. Isn't that what we all want?
My intention is that this article about increasing your visibility and these strategies to make it happen helps you. If they do, please let me know in the comments.
How will you increase your visibility? What are you committing to doing moving forward to increase your visibility? Even if it's one tiny micro-step, let me know in the comments.
And if you want to join my community, go to www.executivebound.com or go to my Book page to learn more about the book, Fearless Women at Work, and download a companion guide. If you read our book, I would be grateful if you leave us a review on Amazon.com.
With love and appreciation,
Coach Ginny 💕
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About Dr. Ginny A. Baro
Dr. Ginny A. Baro is a sought-after international motivational speaker & leadership coach, a career strategist, and #1 bestselling author of Fearless Women at Work.
Ginny specializes in partnering with organization to develop leadership teams at all levels of management. And she supports individuals navigating a corporate hierarchy or moving into an entirely new phase of their career. She has successfully facilitated live and virtual leadership training and coaching programs for individuals and Fortune 500 companies with over 140,000 employees and delivered keynotes impacting international audiences larger than 7,000. To learn more, visit ExecutiveBound.
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